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(From "Samson" number 3, 1941.)
Comments Off on Why throw them in jail when you can throw the jail into them?
Posted in Daily Random Panel
Finishing up Kytana's contest prize, I've just added the following two female heads in profile to the Head-Female-Standard set:
Note that I've left the eyes totally blank, so you can use the separate pupils and eyeballs from the Eyes-Standard set to make her look whichever way you want.
Comments Off on HM3: Female Profile Heads
Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, HeroMachine 3
Jack "King" Kirby had a very distinctive style, one that (love it or hate it) worked for the kinds of stories he told. You can tell at a glance a character that Kirby designed, and when put into one of his worlds those characters fit, no matter how ridiculous they might look in isolation. As an example, take a look at his New God, "Orion":
The guy's wearing magical flying slippers powered by hand-held vacuum cleaners, for pity's sake! Yes, it's a temporary transport device, but he wore it an awful lot.
Besides being literally harnessed to a massive metal contraption guaranteed to make him wobble like a Weeble and dressed in the ubiquitous circus trunks popular Back In The Day, the fact is, this guy rocks. When powered by Kirby's frenetic, kinetic, masterfully laid out pages, he almost jumps off the page and makes you believe someone in this ridiculous getup could actually be a bad-ass.
Contrast that with this Orion redesign from the Nineties:
On the one hand, the ironworks are gone and he's in something that looks slightly more mainstream. On the other hand, you have pointless giant metal head fins. What is he, a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado? The ginormous shoulder pads would restrict his movement even more than the harness would have, and in return you have a somewhat jarring primary blue, red, white, and yellow cacophony all mashed together.
I'm not sure if that ... thing ... hanging down from his belt is a mud flap, a loin cloth, a massively over-engineered cup, or just compensation for the fact that he's wearing a skirt, but it looks way too phallic to be taken seriously. Especially when combined with the nonsensical boots.
I've avoided talking about that face, because technically that's not really a costume part. But let's get real, that's insane. I mean, Orion has a penchant for fury and rage in battle, that's kind of his thing, but in this case he looks less like a berserker and more like someone desperately seeking a bathroom. Which may explain the huge yellow cloud of gas emanating in the background ...
Either way, this costume redesign stinks! You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask of the ol' Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with King Kirby.
(Images © DC Comics.)
Comments Off on Speaking of Cosmic … as in, cosmically BAD
Posted in Bad Super Costumes
(From "Samson" number 3, 1941.)
Comments Off on "Only the SIDE?! Unacceptable!"
Posted in Daily Random Panel
As voted on by you, the astute and powerful HeroMachine users, I am starting work on the first set of the second round of Replacment Prizes. The following contest winners' prizes are now forfeit to the larger community. Their loss is your gain!
Comments Off on Replacement Prizes 2 List 1
Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges
Borntobealoser requested a creeper or some other "Minecraft" item as his prize for winning Character Contest 66. Rather than doing the big pixellated version you see in the actual game, I decided to do something more interpretive, inspired by this Scifer take. Hope you like it, BTBAL! It is now live in Companions-Standard.
Comments Off on Character Contest Prize: Creeper
Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, Character Design Challenges, HeroMachine 3
I am enjoying the debates around these "Versus" fights, so here's another one for you:
To help you in your decision-making process, here's a quick run-down of the two characters (powers not shown):
| Deadpool | Deathstroke |
| Uses multiple samurai swords. | Uses multiple samurai swords. |
| Full mask with sinister eye hole cutouts. | Full mask with sinister eye hole cutouts. |
| Modern body armor. | Chainmail. |
| Mercenary. | Mercenary. |
| Many many pouches. | Many many pouches. |
| Slightly baggy hood. | Flyaway mask ties. |
| Breaks the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience. | Breaks the fourth wall ... of the building his target is hiding in. |
| Created second by "legendary" Rob Liefeld. | Created first by genuine legends Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. |
| Played in one of the worst super hero movies of all time by none other than -- wait for it -- Ryan Reynolds. | Mercifully free (so far) from exploitation by Hollywood. |
For me, the last two points are the difference maker. I don't care how bad-ass either of these guys is, the fact that Deadpool was both created by Rob Liefeld and played by Ryan Reynolds -- a twin bill of titanic suckage -- means I gotta go with Terminator. Plus, come on, how awesome a name is "Deathstroke the Terminator"?! That's like TWO killer monikers rolled into one!
I leave the technical details of who would win in an ACTUAL fight to you better informed folks.
Comments Off on Deadpool vs. Deathstroke
Posted in Versus
Kytana requested a "profile head" for her Character Contest 68 prize. I've put up three versions in Head-Male-Standard as a test -- let me know what you think. It didn't make sense to me to leave off the nose, mouth, and eyes, since there aren't any profile-view versions of those.
Comments Off on HM3: Turned heads
Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, Character Design Challenges, HeroMachine 3
(From "Samson" number 3, 1941.)
Comments Off on With no defenses, wouldn't one attack be enough?
Posted in Daily Random Panel
Greetings, HeroMachinists! Guest Judge John Hartwell here with the results for Character Contest 72 - The Power COSMIC! My thanks to Jeff for the opportunity to be a part of HeroMachine Nation in this capacity, and my thanks to everyone who took the time to submit your work for consideration. Kudos to all!
A quick housekeeping note: please know that if you A) did not name your file as directed in the contest rules, or B) did not provide a correct working link (some links downloaded a .php or .html file), then your submissions were unfortunately not reviewed (or, in some cases, seen).
Now, on to the best of show! (Edited to Add: most of these can be seen at a larger size just by clicking the image. -- Jeff)
Comments Off on Character Contest 72 WINNERS!
Posted in Challenge Favorites, Challenges, Character Design Challenges
Three middle-aged nerds (including yours truly!) review all of the MCU movies in chronological order. Short, funny, and full of good vibes, check it out and let us know what you think!
Nerdmudgeon.com